open-ish | the... sailor fight....

[castitas]

Who: Kate Marsh, Cornelius Hickey, Edward Little, Thomas Jopson, and basically everyone, eventually.
What: Edward Little told Kate Marsh if Cornelius Hickey ever spoke to her again, then she had to come tell him. WELL GUESS WHAT.
When: 21st February.
Where: Various, Milton.

Content Warnings: Discussions involving cannibalism and suicide, including method of suicide (wrist injuries). Major spoilers for AMC's The Terror. Also fighting.

Comments

( Wynonna Earp )

[fidior]

[ It's all become a mess. Others have stepped in — Constable Fraser and young Kieren Walker, and they seem to be succeeding in separating the two men before they can do worse to each other (although it's already terrible, Jopson is bleeding from his nose, and Edward keeps thinking that any moment it will resume again, and Hickey may extract a knife from his clothing and strike the man, ending it all).

This isn't something with an easy resolution — if any at all. Even when the heat of it seems to die down and the swell of immediate panic is stopped before it can burst into an uncontrollable frenzy, his own swirling panic remains, spinning around and around inside of his chest with nowhere to go.

Kate isn't safe now. She can't truly be safe here ever again, is the thought, the one he doesn't know what to do with. It's that same sense of helplessness, of stagnancy, only this time he cannot let himself fall into it. He has to— do something. He needs help.

He thinks of Wynonna Earp. He's seen her act more than once by now — for his sake sometimes, and for the sake of others, and she can be so abrasive and rough and reckless; she'll use physical force without a second thought, she'll raise her voice at someone, she has a most formidable weapon, (she knows what it means to need to protect someone, and he trusts her). He's rushing to her home as soon as he leaves Kate with Fraser and the instruction to keep her away from Hickey. There's no doubt that the Constable can be trusted with such a task, especially given how well he'd handled the fight itself.

He's run the whole way, breathless by the time he reaches her door on the outskirts of town, not incredibly far from his own cabin's location. He knocks loud and firm — not pounding on the door, but with an insistence. ]

Miss Earp! Are you there? I require your assistance—!

[ Please let her be inside. ]

[pacificator]

[ Her cabin is no longer the silent, freezing place it had been when she'd sat here with only her shadow double for company. It's warm from coals cooking in her wood stove, and neat, and she's not sitting on the bed staring into nothingness when the knock comes. She's not sitting at all, she's climbing up to the crisp cold attic space, steps pausing on the ladder at the sound of booted feet on her porch, knuckles against her door, and an insistent and all-too-familiar voice.

Looks like her trip up to her makeshift larder will have to wait. Wynonna hops down to the floor, then makes her way to the door, opening it before he can start another round of knocking and calling. He looks flushed and out of breath and anxious, but then, he usually looks at least two out of those three at any given time. ]

What's wrong, Little?

[ She doesn't hesitate even as she says the words, stepping back and pulling the door with her, tipping her head in a silent invitation for him to come in. This is the hell to which she's consigned herself by showing up at his place and admitting she gives a damn about him; they now live in a world where he shows up at her door to ask her for help. Somehow, this is the new normal. Yikes.

Her cabin isn't big, but it's a lot more comfortable than the porch. He may as well sit or stand in a warm room while he gets out whatever it is he came for. ]

If you need help opening a jar or something, just whack it on the edge of the counter. Works every time.

[ Easier to get in a dig when he's still trying to catch his breath. ]

[fidior]

[ There's a sweep of quick relief that rushes in like a wave, and Edward's moving inside just as quickly as he's allowed to — with none of the usual awkward hesitation he might wear like a second coat, waiting for further permission even beyond the gesture of an opened door and the tilt of a head: he'd need to be invited in, directly....

Not this time. This time he's taking Wynonna's unspoken invitation and moving inside, casting a glance around as he does so; it's the first time he's been inside of her home. It's nice, modest like his own but perhaps a bit more lived-in, a bit more welcoming (the bed is in the living area, he notes, with a generous lift of eyebrows) — but he's quickly enough looking back to her as he stands there, placing one gloved hand to his chest as he fights to catch his breath. He'd never been a particularly athletic individual, but he'd been in decent shape before those nightmarish days on the ice ate him away. Recovery since then has been a slow process, and he's gained weight again, filled back out, but the poison keeps him weakened in a very particular way, and things hurt more than they once would have. He grimaces for a moment or two, before continuing. ]

It isn't that sort of assistance, although I appreciate your guidance, [ he says, as earnestly as ever, thinking she's serious... Sorry, Wynonna. The worst part of it is that his heart takes a moment to be touched by her thoughtfulness to offer help with such a problem.... And really, opening cans and jars was quite the task, in his time. Often it even required a hammer... ]

There has been an incident. [ Wide-eyed, he realises he doesn't quite know how to explain. How does he put the culmination of his worst fears here into words? How to convey it? He'll start with the most direct of it— ] Mr. Jopson and Mr. Hickey have been fighting, quite violently, at the Community Center. The matter had been dying down somewhat when I left, but I fear the worst of it may not be over. In fact, I am certain that it will not be. They— much has happened between them. Between all of us. I am afraid that Mr. Jopson is in grave danger now. And others— Kate Marsh—

[ His words break off for a moment in his breathless upset. ]

[pacificator]

[ What should have been a sure ding with almost any other guy bounces ineffectively off his general aura of earnestness, leaving her rolling her eyes as she goes to the sink to pour a glass of water. Him assuming she's being nice and helpful instead of rude and picking on him just takes all the fun out of it.

Coming back, she pushes the glass at him, frowning both with her own irritation and at the way he's got his hand pressed against his chest. Did he run all the way here? What the hell?

The way he says there has been an incident capitalizes the word in her head, the way he'd capitalized a bunch of innocent adjectives on the note he'd left on the message board. There has been an Incident. It hits her with a jolt, like cold water is pouring down the inside of her ribcage, and all she can think of is La'an. If that thing had showed up again, if it took another one of them...

But he keeps going, and now she's staring at him in black surprise. He's saying names, but none of them fit together in anything like a full picture in her head... she hadn't even known any of them knew each other. ]

Jopson?

[ A quick cut of her glance to the blanket hanging over the chair by the stove; soft black fabric decorated with neat embroidery. He'd brought that blanket for her. He'd made it for her. And he'd come here and dragged her out of her melancholy and if someone hurt Thomas Jopson, she will happily show that person every single one of their own teeth, right after she punches each molar, incisor, and canine out of their mouth.

Her brows draw together as he runs aground on his own worry, words falling off into silence. ]

Is Kate okay?

[ She's only met Hickey the one time, and he'd been fine, mostly. The reason for Little's worry about him isn't totally clear to her, but honestly? She's never needed that much clarity. ]

Where are they now?

[fidior]

[ He takes the water with a silent nod of thanks, immediately taking a sip to clear his throat, his head, and then another swallow. It helps, cool water down his throat, soothing the odd way the crisp chill outside made it feel raw on his run over here. ]

Still at the Community Center. I've left her under Constable Fraser's watch — she's all right, they're both all right for this moment, but... it is the longer term that I am afraid for, Miss Earp.

[ He'll have to explain it to her, to really make things clear. It's a foreboding thought; he's been staying tight-lipped on all of the interpersonal upsets that the crewmen from Terror and Erebus have had, afraid that the act of making waves might cause a leak in all of it, and too much flooding out. Too much that's dangerous, that could be dangerous. Well now it's happened, and there's no patching that leak up. He turns to her, drawing closer as he continues on. ]

Miss Marsh and Mr. Hickey had a sort of confrontation. She came immediately to tell me of it, as I had instructed her to do. He is... a dangerous man. More dangerous than any here can know.

[ Guilt pools in — he should have done more to protect them all from him, but... how? He'd agonised over this in his first months here in Milton. He couldn't just keep the man locked away in some makeshift prison, or spread news of his crimes and risk some sort of mob reaction. ]

Back in the days of the Expedition, he... went wrong. Or perhaps he always had been. He committed heinous acts — truly abhorrent. Against our captain... my fellow officers, several of the crew, and even the natives of that land. [ Edward has to take a moment to swallow before continuing. ]

But not all at once, no, it was... over a great amount of time. He is patient, cunning. Miss Marsh found out the most brutal things he'd ever done, and now.... now I fear that she has become a target for him. She, and Mr. Jopson.

If someone is a target of that devil's, I fear they will never be safe. Not ever again.

[pacificator]

[ She shifts closer, one hand on the back of a dining chair as she listens, but as Little keeps talking, as he tells her what happened, it's not Hickey's mild and smiling face she sees in her mind's eye, but Bobo's.

Bobo and all his plans. Bobo and the way he tortured Levi. Bobo and his honeyed, poisoned words to Waverly.

She wouldn't have thought Hickey was anything like that demon of a revenant, but Little is honest, and Little doesn't exaggerate. She can take every word of what he's saying as the truth. If Hickey's that cunning, that vicious, then Edward's probably right – Jopson and Kate probably are targets. And it's not outside the realm of possibility that he, himself, could wind up in the crosshairs of Hickey's revenge, all for things that happened before they got here. Kate hadn't even been involved.

And – knowing all this – he'd come here, to her. Calling for her assistance, and there's really only one way she can help, right? She's not a mediator. She's not someone who's going to be able to smooth a situation over. That's not why he came here.

Wynonna draws a long and even breath in through her nose, then turns away from him to reach for her gunbelt, slung over a chair back. ]

They'll be fine. [ She's not the most reassuring person in the world, but there's a flat certainty to her words that might help. Peacemaker's grip gleams mellowly as she wraps the belt around her hips, buckles it, feeling the comforting weight of the old Buntline Special against her hip.

She looks back up at Little, who had seemingly rushed all the way here. Who, when faced with this threat, opted to come to her.

Maybe they are a pretty good team, after all. ] We'll make sure of it.

[ We. In one word, she picks a side; places herself squarely at his. He hasn't even asked her in so many words yet, but he doesn't really need to. She owes a lot to Jopson, to Kate. She cares about them both. And she... owes is the wrong word for whatever this tentative connection is that she has with Little, but she doesn't have the right one so she just starts looking for her coat, getting ready to go back with him. To help. ] And between you and me, I'm pretty sure I can take Hickey in a fight.